NOMINATIONS CLOSE SEPTEMBER 12 RECOGNISING THE INDIVIDUALS BEHIND THE PROJECTS
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There is not a scrap of evidence to suggest construction has kicked off again on the world’s tallest tower in Saudi Arabia.
Jeddah Tower was to stretch 1km into the sky, however construction stalled in 2018 about a third of the way up.
Media outlets have this month reported a “source close to the project” said Jeddah Tower was “back in full motion”, however companies among those allegedly involved knew nothing of this.
Both companies “invited to bid” on the project as well as people on the ground said they were yet to receive any official information.
Swedish construction and development company Skanska was one of the companies listed in the original MEED Middle East Business Intelligence news report.
When The Urban Developer contacted Skanska, a spokesperson said no contact had been made by the Jeddah Tower team.
“We will not bid on this project as we don’t have any operations in that part of the world any more,” Skanska head of media relations and public affairs Jacob Birkeland said.
“No [information was provided], hence we won’t bid and don’t operate in the market.”
First started in 2013, the skyscraper would have been taller than Dubai’s 830m Burj Khalifa.
It was planned to be the heart of Jeddah Economic City and was originally named Kingdom Tower.
In March 2020, The Urban Developer spoke with Thornton Tomasetti principal Robert Sinn who was part of the engineering company that provided structural design services for the building.
They were hopeful construction would begin in 2020 but there was no revised completion date and construction on the surrounding masterplan was ongoing.
A week later the Covid pandemic hit and in the years following, the construction site for the world’s tallest tower remained untouched.
Urban explorer Jay Charvet recently visited the site. He said the site was abandoned—even finding dust in the cab of one of the cranes.
“There is absolutely no one, no workers or construction equipment active,” Charvet told The Urban Developer.
“I was there in June and, like you, I saw reports on the internet that the work had resumed. This is not the case.”
Several companies listed in the original Jeddah Tower report were contacted for this article.
This included the Jeddah Economic Company (JEC) and Kingdom Holding Co, however they had not responded by the time of publication.
Meanwhile, the JEC website has not been updated since 2015 while its social media accounts set up since 2020 have been deleted.
Kingdom Holdings on the other hand, while silent on the Jeddah Tower project, has announced a $107-million investment in the renovation of the Four Seasons Hotel in Riyadh in February.
Four Seasons was the major hotelier listed to operate a property in Jeddah Tower.
